Balfour Beatty’s Hinkley Point C tunnelling and marine programme this week featured in a New Civil Engineer Project Report. The in-depth article highlights the significant benefits the project will bring in supplying safe, secure low carbon electricity to around six million homes.
The four-year Hinkley Point C tunnelling and marine package includes the construction of three marine tunnels - both onshore and offshore – totalling over 9.5 kilometres in length and 7 metres in diameter to form part of the vital cooling system required for the UK’s landmark nuclear power station.
Discussing the works, Alistair Geddes from Balfour Beatty and Rob Bermingham from EDF Energy, explore how challenges including minimised tunnel deviation tolerances and difficult offshore tidal conditions, have been overcome.
The report also highlights how in a first for the UK, Balfour Beatty is utilising its innovative manufacturing facility in Avonmouth to create the 38,000 pre-fabricated nuclear-grade concrete segments required to ensure that each of three Tunnel Boring Machines delivers significant efficiency savings, whilst excavating over 11 tonnes of rock per minute.
Alistair Geddes, Balfour Beatty Project Director, said: “You talk about 38,000 segments and it makes it sound easy but it’s 38,000 nuclear concrete pours.”
“So, if you think it’s a nuclear concrete poured 38,000 times you change your mentality.”
Balfour Beatty is contracted to three major packages of works at Hinkley Point C. It was first appointed to deliver the electrical works package in 2015, now part of the MEH Joint Venture, the tunnelling and marine package in 2017 and most recently, the 400kV overhead line project on behalf of National Grid in 2019.
To read the article in full, please click here.
ENDS
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Notes to editors:
- Balfour Beatty (balfourbeatty.com) is a leading international infrastructure group. With 26,000 employees, we provide innovative and efficient infrastructure that underpins our daily lives, supports communities and enables economic growth. We finance, develop, build and maintain complex infrastructure such as transportation, power and utility systems, social and commercial buildings.
- Our main geographies are the UK, US and Hong Kong. Over the last 110 years we have created iconic buildings and infrastructure all over the world including the London Olympics’ Aquatic Centre, Hong Kong’s first Zero Carbon building, the National Museum of the Marine Corps in the US and the Channel Tunnel Rail Link.
- Balfour Beatty’s Major Projects business deliver large-scale, complex infrastructure projects which keep the UK moving and the economy thriving. Employing over 2,000 people, the business operates within three principal markets; Transportation; Energy and Power and Major Infrastructure.
- To maximise our offering on major infrastructure projects, we partner with the world’s leading international companies in joint ventures such as VINCI, Skanska and Mott MacDonald to complement our construction offering on mega-infrastructure projects.
- Our current portfolio of major projects include two design and build contracts for High Speed 2 in a joint venture with VINCI, the four-year Hinkley Point C nuclear power station tunnelling and marine works package on behalf of EDF Energy and London’s new major super-sewer through central London, in a joint venture with BAM Nuttall and Morgan Sindall.
- Iconic projects of the past include Heathrow Airport Terminal 2 departure lounges, the transformation of the iconic former London Olympic Stadium into a multi-purpose sporting venue and in a joint venture with VINCI the South West of England’s first Smart Motorway to improve journey safety and traffic capacity on the M4 and M5.
